h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Douglas Adams observed that blowing up the Earth at the beginning of the story didn't leave him with many options for the rest of the story. Unlike the Star Trek franchise, which always had the option of returning to Earth periodically to recharge, HHGTTG had to wander through the cosmos or find a nice place to settle permanently. The last book of the "trilogy" had Arthur Dent and Trillian return to Earth to die. I didn't like that ending.

Vast amounts of people know that the meaning of life is 42, and that this is because it was written in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, probably several times as many people as have actually read the book. This is a strong brand.

Also, those people who went and saw the film in droves, never having read the book, and loved it. What were they laughing at? Douglas Adams' fantastic writing. Some of it only works in text, but a lot just needs to be said right.

Some stories are basically plot-driven, while others are character-driven. "Gulliver's Travels" was an example of the first category. "Gone with the wind" and HHGTTG seem to be examples of the second. Frankly, I always wanted to read the next book and see what Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox were up to.

I didn't like the ending to the last book either, Paul. From what I understand, neither did DNA. I think he was trying to fix it before he passed away far too early, but I guess its up to each of us to try and figure out how they all got out of that one.

HHGTTG is most definitely NOT plot OR character driven. I quote from Neil Gaiman's "Don't Panic", 1st edition, pg 138, quoting Douglas Adams - "Most of the ideas in Hitchhikers come from the logic of jokes."

"Dirk Gently", at least the first one, was plot driven. HHGTTG was almost entirely joke-driven, and remains so. I say this as someone who has loved the series for over a quarter of a century, but the characters (at least in the radio and TV series and the first two books) are mostly ciphers, Trillian especially, cardboard cutouts there to react to fantastical things happening around them and provide the setups and punchlines for gags, and the plot is rambling, inconsistent and directionless. But this is almost the whole point - it isn't like anything else. DNA didn't sit down and ponder for hours about Arthur or Ford's backstory or motivations, and didn't have a huge spider diagram somewhere detailing the intricacies of the plot and the Big Picture of where it was headed. He wrote a satire on the human condition with some fantastic jokes, and the science fiction format allowed him to do so with complete freedom as ideas occurred to him.

Of course, all the above applies only to the radio and TV series and first two books. Life, the Universe and Everything was of course entirely plot driven, what with it being a recycled Dr. Who script and everything, but that fact pointed out the essential feckless two-dimensionality of the characters. Later, So Long and Thanks For All The Fish was charmingly almost entirely character driven, with hardly any plot as such. The author appears to have anticipated the fan reaction to this with the rather angry chapter 25, in which he invites readers with no interest in character development to "skip on to the last chapter which is a good bit and has Marvin in it".

I can't really comment on "Mostly Harmless" as I read it once through the day it was published and was so shocked I've never opened it since.

H.

<"Most of the ideas in Hitchhikers come from the logic of jokes.">

Which, unless you are writing Airplane/Naked Gun-type of films, is a loser from the start for a film.

Had they made a film where the ideas/humour came just from the logic of jokes the film would already have died on its @rse which it has not done. There are still alot of those logical ideas in there but they do not need to be telegraphed to drive the story.

For the movie to be made something had to be lost from the books.

From an article on the Beeb website:

"The film has received mixed reviews from the critics, as it struggles to contain Adams' deceptively complex work into a two-hour movie that is appealing both to newcomers and cult fans. "

- deceptively complex work - would you go along with that Hoo?

Deceptively complex - damn right. When I re-read the books again a couple of year ago the main thing that struck me was the sheer density of ideas - DNA would setup and dispose of an idea in a paragraph that other lesser authors would spread over a blockbuster trilogy. But the structure of the original allowed him to do that, with whatever occurred to him, as it occurred to him. You can't do that in a movie, at least not too much, because it's so distracting.

The movie is, first and foremost, a movie. THEN it's HHGG. Which is why I still like it.

H.

This is a great discussion!

Yes, Trillian *was* pretty much a cipher.

There's a dark view of the universe underpinning much of Adams's writing. Planets with ten billion people on them get sent into black holes; even the Earth gets blown up by celestial bureaucrats.

The movie rounded off some of the sharp edges of those bureacrats, making them cute muppets. I thought that was an appropriate thing to do. If you make the Vogons too scary, you risk not having a comedy any more

(Just my two cents worth)

Although that view of the Broken Backed... Oh, darnit... Whutterthey that the vogons sit on?

Whatever it was was pretty gruesome.

The scintillating jewelled crabs, while very funny, was also sometimes quite disturbing... in a good and funny way.

I wonder if PETA will protest the Vogons? And if the Vogons will feed them to the RBBBoT if they do?

The Henson people managed to make the Vogons amazingly lovable. if that's not miraculous, I don't know what is.

I loved that part where the noon whistle blows just as the Vogons are about to take off after our heroes. True to their bureaucratic calling, they immediately break for lunch, and one of them decides to have *two* lunches.

I thought that that was excruciatingly funny, because it was so close to what *I* would have done.

Trillian should have been english.
The Dolphin song was too long.

Considering what other's around me thought of the film my complaints are quite minor. I liked most of it.

I too thrilled at the old music. Should have been more of it.
Loved the improbibility scenes.

What is all this about the old marvin? Old? What, from the TV series? (I never saw that.)

If the book or radio series were joke-driven, does that make it into a panto? After all, all a panto is is jokes loosely strung together by a vauge plot.

And please remember that tis is not a movie. It's a film. (Where did all the Americans come from? (And don't say America!))

I saw a bit of the hitch-hikers TV series last night, and it was the bit where they find the entrance for the tunnels under Magrathea and Zaphod gives his great speech.

Zaphod: . . . we're going to be more than just great. More than amazing. We're going to be . . . Amazingly Amazing!
Marvin: Sounds awful.

And I laughed. I knew the joke and yet I still found it funny. I can't remember if that joke was in the film, but if I was then I didn't find it funny or memorable.

Why did ford mumble so much in the film? I couldn't understand a word he said.

I thought Ford mumbled too much, too. When I saw the movie the second time, I understood more of his lines. He was suppposed to be an extraterrestrial, though. Those ET's often have trouble with the language.

"What is all this about the old marvin? Old? What, from the TV series? (I never saw that.)"

Yes, from the TV series. If you watch the scene where they're queuing up to save Trillian, amongst the other beings in the queue is a silver robot with upturned triangles for eyes. It is in fact the very costume used in the 1980 television series, refurbished for its appearance in the film - in fact, it's just the upper half of the costume. There's a photo in the "Making of" book (thanks alex! ) which shows the performer, and there's this substantial upper body and head and these two spindly little black-tights wearing legs poking out the bottom. .

It's one of those moments when you can judge how many REAL hhgg fans there are in the audience, because a small murmur goes up as of half a dozen s nudging their partner and whispering "That's the original Marvin!". Similarly the Magrathean announcer...

H.

I spotted Marvin (and heard the murmur in the cinema!).

Some of the other creatures in that same queue where the old Marvin appeared looked familiar to me too. Were they borrowed from elsewhere in the TV series (or do I just meet some very odd looking people)?

When I saw the movie the first time, the Magrathean announcer looked familiar to me, but I was having trouble placing him (he turned out to be Simon Jones, a friend of Douglas Adams who played Arthur Dent in the TV version). I didn't notice the original Marvin the first time.

You didn't notice the original Marvin?!

I noticed him in the first shot. In fact, I felt that they overdid the amount of shots he was in. There was even a close-up which I felt was way too much.

I also.

GodBen, these eyes of mine have a lot of mileage on them. If they don't work as well as they used to, what can I do about it?